Different Religious Dictionary

Have you ever taken a comparative religion class? Or just a world religion class in general? There's Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and maybe even Zoroastrianism  but how often does Mormonism get thrown into that mix?

Think about this, all the terms you use to talk about Christianity, but with completely different meanings. You talk of atonement, they talk of atonement. You talk of God's love, they talk of God's love. You talk of God as your Father, they talk of Heavenly Father. Yet each of those means something different

Their idea of atonement is not the Evangelical Christ view of atonement, nor their idea of God's love the same, nor their view of God as their Father.

It all sounds the same but all the meanings are different. Apologetics with a Mormon are, I would guess, a waste of time. How can you move a conversation forward if you're both working from different dictionaries? (To add to this, they always come in twos and have "lying for the lord," as backup for getting into tricky conversations.) 

So what is the apologetic we use? Relationship.

We use the dictionary we both have in common, our humanity and need for community, to build a relationship wherein we can form trust and literally show 2 Peter 3:14-17 to those of another religious dictionary.

Kindness & Love

“…For about a hundred years we have so concentrated on one of the virtues – ‘kindness’ or mercy – that most of us do not feel anything expect kindness to be really good or anything but cruelty to be really bad.”[1]

When C.S. Lewis wrote these words in 1940, “Kindness,” ruled the day, but now over 70 years later, “Love,” rules. Starting somewhere - in the 1960’s I’d assume – love became the new pet virtue.

What we’ve seen is that our definition and understanding of love, that is what we’ve been conditioned to recognize as love, is nothing more than the obtaining of sex. And, therefore, the denial of sex is pure hatred.  We’ve been had. We have been lied to.

The lie is that sex is the true meaning of love. Whether this happened by some terrible accident of marketing, “Sex sells,” or it was some grand scheme of the devil (who needs no congratulations if it was) I don’t know. But what I do know is that the conditioning we’ve been conditioned to know as reality is truly a fiction.

A reconditioning not just of our knowledge but also of our feelings is what is required. We can know all we want about the facts of what Christian (and by that I mean true) love is, but that ought to influence our hearts – our emotions. Our conditioned understanding of love as sex must be reoriented to the true meaning of love, God.

But still more we must understand all virtues in this manner. This is the heart side of the matter of belief. In faith our emotions are impacted in a biblical way. So things that are truly unjust are seen and felt as such; things that are kind are seen as kind; and love is seen as Love.

Yet we live in – as Lewis called them – pockets and in these pockets we have convinced ourselves of our own goodness, our virtuousness. But as we look from our 21^st Century pocket to the pocket of the Middle Ages we call them cruel and mean while they would see themselves as courageous and chivalrous and us as cowardly and apathetic.

Indeed we ought to really be a horror to God and ourselves. Our pet virtue of love is really no virtue at all just a selfish desire of sexual satisfaction and our understanding of our own time’s, “goodness,” is simply because no one has yet interfered with us to the point of physical violence with them (while mental violence has already accosted them).

We must relearn what it is to be truly human and that by the blood of the cross.

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[1] C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain. Pg 56

Re-defining Hope

A couple weeks ago I wrote about re-defining goodness, perhaps there’s a series of posts inside this “redefining” theme – or not. There’s at least this one.

"Hope," it meant something different to me as a kid than it does now.

You see, now I bank all I am on a hope. Then I would’ve hoped to go to Disney World, or whatever.

We hope for eating Oreo’s for dessert and having a good day. We hope for finding the one we love and marrying them. We hope for children who grow healthy and strong. We hope to see a good movie. Does that demonstrate the diversity of the word? Hope. (I’m not a big political guy, but I do know Obama used hope as a campaign slogan in 2008.)

Yet if we redefine it then it ought to be understood something like this, hope: an earnest expectation.

There’s a reason the symbol for hope is an anchor. Because our hope is the foundation of faith (perhaps), it will not be put to shame. It is the earnest expectation that God will do what he has promised to do and save our souls. It’s knowledge of the factual reality that God will make all things new. It’s the feeling persuasion of spiritual things. It’s what we bet all of life and all of love and all of all against that God will be God and we will be men and this is for our good.

My anchor holds within the veil.

So hope isn’t just a want or desire for something to happen or change – no – it’s an expectation that it will change and it will happen. And the expectation is of such a fervently firm nature that we are willing to plan the rest of today (cause that’s all we’re semi-sure of) and dare to plan 80 years of life upon.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Re-defining Good

A while back in one of those “thoughts” posts I wrote the following: “The goodness of God draws us to repentance. I think our definition of 'good' is too small, too shallow, too flimsy.” I want to think that through a little more.

It’s easy to look at goodness and only think of lovely things, of happy times. Those times when we’re feeling freest and strongest. When things seem to be going swimmingly and all is ‘right’ in the world.

Let me get to the point more directly. We need to re-define ‘good.’

We need to re-define it because we know the goodness of God draws us to repentance. We know he is the director of the orchestra of life and therefore the beautiful highs and the terrible lows are all part of the symphony of the plan of God.

I look to the death of a good friend and cannot help but think, “That was the goodness of God drawing my heart to repentance.” I look at the struggles of my own heart and mind and must admit, “These are the goodness of God drawing me to repentance.” I look at the wonder of my nephew and must confess, “This is the goodness of God drawing me to repentance.” I look at the Big Dipper in the night sky and know, "There is the goodness of God drawing me to repentance." 

Repentance: the turning away from sin to Jesus.

Goodness: the actions of God to give me (us) God.

There’s more redefining to do. All our words must be re-understood. For God is God and we are not, therefore we are feebly weak in our grasping at vocabulary. ‘Cause good might not always feel 'good'; and love won’t always feel like 'loving'; and hope won’t always feel like flying.

(Picture from Steve Coleman)

Response to the Colorado Theatre Shooting

How should a Christian respond to the dreadful shooting in Colorado?

As Christians, as people, there ought to be a sense of urgency about life. We don’t know when it’ll end. But we should also not be hardened by this fact.

Should we feel pain for the people who’ve lost? Yes. Should we pray for the man who did this? Yes. Should we weep? If called to, yes. Should we despair at the plight of the world and the evil we see all around us and in us? No. A firm and resounding no.

Why should we feel pain for those who’ve lost? Because they are our fellow man; we inhabit the same time, though we don’t know them they should be shown compassion.

Why should we pray for the man who did this? Because by God’s grace he needs God. There was no discrimination at the cross for murderers, thieves, adulterers and deniers. We, the Church, have been shown grace beyond our understanding and therefore we should show grace beyond human reason. (But to hate the act, the sinful act, is to share in God’s hatred against sin.)

Why should we weep if called to do so? Because we ought to have hearts. Compassion yes, but more than that, we should have love. Which means that in our love for God we see his glory spat on in sinful acts (our own included). We should weep for the brokenness of the world and the devastating nature that the fall has brought about. We should weep because we see vividly the failures of men.

Why should we not despair? Because God has won. The evil around and within us is to be defeated, indeed it has been. Jesus did not die just for the salvation of sinners, no he accomplished much, much more. He died to defeat, to solidly defeat Satan, sin, and death.

The effects we feel and see (especially here) but we must know and believe that God was not caught off guard by a maniac with a gun. Not at all. Is God sovereign? Yes. But asking why God didn’t stop this is asking the wrong question.

We must not ask why he didn’t stop it; rather, we must ask why he planned it. He’s not a tame God, don’t commit the error of thinking him a cuddly bear, but he’s good, he’s a terribly good God.

We must not think too small of God - ever.

(AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

Old Phrase

“Infinite perfections.”

All those dead guys I love to read always use this phrase at some point or another to describe God.

Eventually Jonathan Edwards will drop it (…like it’s hot?) or Calvin will going on and on about how beautiful these “infinite perfections” are, still more Luther will cuss at you while telling you about your stupidity in not seeing the “infinite perfections" of God (Luther is my favorite).

But, I know our language, and I also know we probably aren’t quite sure what to make of a phrase like this.

When I first read it, it was just more words. But now, today, this morning even, they’ve taken on new meaning.

The infinite perfections of God.

He is from first to last utterly perfect. Not a part of his wrath is imperfect. Not a part of his justice is imperfect. Not a part of his grace, mercy, goodness, greatness, grandeur, glory, wonder, splendor, Kingship, wisdom, knowledge, gentleness, kindness, humility, zeal, passion, or love is imperfect.

Think about that. Every bit of every detail of every turn of who God is, is completely and totally perfect - infinite perfections.

Yet still more this quote is deeply true, “We have scarcely begun to see all of God that the Scriptures give us to see, and what we have not seen yet is exceedingly glorious (John Piper).”

Truly what we’ve seen is exceedingly glorious, but what we haven’t seen will add still more and more to the exceeding glory of the infinite perfections of who God is making all of life worthwhile because God is God and we are not.

In the End

After all is said & when all is done; even then, even still we look to Jesus. Our hope & our great reward.

We can portray the gospel perfectly, we can speak it clearly, we can do it all ‘right,’ but even still some will not believe it. It’s not a failure on our part (even though some of us have been taught to think so). They just don’t have faith.

But discouragement for us is still there. We love them. We’ve been called to love them, the ones with faith and without. So it hurts when they don’t believe in the same life giving hope we believe in, it hurts badly.

But after we’ve said it all and done it all and loved them well (which won’t end until we’re dead), even then we still look to Jesus.

Not our actions or our words. Not our love or care. Just to Jesus.

Simple, right? Profound too. Just to Jesus.

Giver of life and love deeds and words. Everything.

It breaks us and makes us whole. It kills us and brings us to life. It softens us and emboldens us. Very simply we look to Jesus.

He’s the one who saves, who calls the dead to life and gives the life to live. He does it not us and our ability (or inability) to present the gospel in the clearest of fashions. Not the formula or the ‘Evangelist’ Jesus saves souls.

Boil all of our Theology and doctrine down to one simple thing; Jesus Christ came to save sinners for the glory of God. 

For Mother's Day

What my mother means to me:

Graciousness.

Mercifulness.

Lovely.

Tenderness.

Boldness.

Gentleness.

Kindness.

My mom is an amazing woman. While working a professional job saving lives, she raised two kids. She put up with the antics of my dad (and mine, ‘cause raising a boy is straight sanctification I assume) and did so in a way that bespeaks godly, biblical submission to his authority. (That is not to say my upbringing was in any way chauvinistic. It is to say my dad was/is the spiritual leader.)

Mother’s day, the day to celebrate what mom has done for her kids.

For protecting her kids like a bear.

For being the only one to console a broken heart.

For being the nurse to fix scrapped knees.

For saving tiny shoes and old pictures.

For the correction little sinners need.

For the tears at our graduations and awards.

For the life of love given to another.

 Yet, some have lost their mom. Whether from the slow wear of time, cancer, or suddenness of a car wreck she won’t be around this Sunday. Indeed, eventually, most of us will face the time where we bid our final goodbye and try to remember her as she was.

So Mother’s Day might as well be another way to say unconditional-love-care-support-gentleness-kindness-and-protection Day -- for all. The druggy on the street corner, the friends who have lost her, the kids who know her, and everyone else, ‘cause mom was always there for me and what better way to celebrate who my mom is than to imitate her?